


Dream Cake

by Kiraly



Category: A Redtail's Dream (Webcomic), Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Bittersweet, Cake, Dreamworld Shenanigans, Flash Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 20:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11020881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiraly/pseuds/Kiraly
Summary: After his encounter with the strange priest lady and her dream church, Onni finds more and more spirits who don't want to move on. Sometimes, he finds a way to help them.





	Dream Cake

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this week's Synchronised Screaming Flash Fic Challenge! The theme was "dreams", and the prompt I chose was  
> "aRTD/SSSS Crossover: Onni & the Kuikka Twins, dreamworld cake bakery"
> 
> It ended up with a bit of a sad twist, but there is cake!

Onni pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders. Technically, it was neither warm nor cold on the vast expanse of the dream sea, but he couldn't help shivering anyway. Every instinct screamed for him to turn around and return to the safety of his haven. A year ago, he would have. But ever since his sister and cousin went away to the Silent World, nothing was quite the same. They'd come back changed, and somehow Onni had changed too, even though his physical body never left the relative safety of the Known World.

Here in the dream, it was never entirely safe, anyway. Not when roaming Icelandic mages could walk through his barriers as though they weren't there. Onni grimaced, thinking of Reynir. It was probably his fault that Onni was doing this, instead of staying inside like a rational person. His optimism—or maybe his curiosity—was contagious.

And it wasn't like Onni could just _ignore_ the new dream area. It had arrived without warning, just appeared from the mist like a cork popping up out of the water. He'd asked everyone, and there were no new mages in the area. So it couldn't be a normal haven. It was something new...or something old.

When Onni set foot on the shore, he knew it was the latter. The building in front of him had no protections, only wooden walls and large windows to let in light. None of the runes the Icelanders used to fortify their buildings—and it was wood, anyway, which also ruled them out. And the faded sign hanging over the door was in Finnish

_Kuikan Puoti._ Kuikka’s Store. There was a picture of some kind of bird in the middle.

A relic of the old world. It couldn't be anything else—no one would run a tiny store in the middle of nowhere, not in Year 90 Keuruu. And ever since his encounter with the priest woman's spirit, he'd been finding more and more of these places. People who hadn't passed on; people who had wrapped the remnants of their former lives around them when the world fell to the rash. They soothed themselves with dreams of what was until nothing of their world remained, and their very lives went with it. Some, like the priest lady, were too foreign for Onni to help. But others would listen, if only he found what they needed. And it was his duty as a mage to do just that.

With a sigh, Onni pushed open the door and stepped inside.

The smell hit him first. It was warm and heady, like a fresh round of rye straight from the oven. Other scents mingled with it, spices he couldn't identify and a sweet overtone of sugar. His mouth started watering immediately. Onni swallowed and scanned the room for any sign of life—or afterlife. "Hello?" No response. But clearly _someone_ was in residence. It was bright: sunlight filtered in through the windows, even though the world outside had no sun to speak of. Wooden tables with benches filled the main area, with a dividing wall that must lead to the kitchen. Since no one answered his greeting, Onni made his way to the kitchen door.

He’d expected to find someone in the kitchen. He found _two_ someones instead, slouched against the counter. They looked like a young man and a young woman, dressed in some kind of uniform that included an apron with the store’s logo. From the similarity of their features, Onni assumed they were family.

He was careful not to approach the spirits or look into their eyes; even if they were like the priest lady, that didn’t mean they were harmless. Spirits often acted how they would have in their former lives, but they could also be violent when provoked. So he kept his distance and coughed politely. “Ahem. Excuse me?”

The spirits jumped up in alarm. “We were just taking our break!” they chorused in unison. Then their identical horrified expressions relaxed. “Oh,” said the woman, “You’re not Dad.”

“I should hope not,” Onni grumbled. “Now look. Tell me who you are, and I will guide you towards your destination. It’ll be quick and painless.”

The siblings exchanged glances. “Umm...no offense, but I don’t think you can help us. If we leave, Dad will be _pissed,”_ the man said.

“And that’s anything but painless,” the woman added. “You can hear him yell from the other side of the village.”

“So thanks but no thanks, we’ll be staying right here,” the man concluded. Having said their piece, the two settled back into their former positions.

_Great. Another of the complicated ones._ “So...you’re saying you remember who you are, but you won’t move on?” Onni asked.

“Of course we do. Everyone knows who we are. ‘There go the Kuikka twins, watch out for trouble’. Not that we cause trouble!”

“No?” Onni doubted that. They were causing _him_ plenty of problems.

“Not anymore.” The man said. “We got in trouble for a _completely harmless_ little prank—”

“That guy didn’t even _need_ his eyebrows,” the woman muttered.

“And Dad said we’re not allowed to leave here until he comes back to deal with us, or until we’ve gotten rid of every cake in the bakery.”

Onni sighed. The spirits who were waiting for a loved one to return were the hardest. “And he hasn’t come back yet?”

“No.” They both shook their heads. “And we haven’t had many customers.”

“Do you want some cake?” the man asked. He pushed away from the counter and went to a rack in the corner, where Onni could see dozens of cakes cooling. He pulled one out and carried it over to where Onni stood. “We’re not supposed to give them to people without getting money, but...if you don’t tell, we won’t.” His sister offered Onni a fork.

Usually, it was a bad idea to take anything from spirits. They could be a trick, intended to trap an unwary mage in his dreams forever. But Onni remembered that other dream, and the cakes that old woman had offered...nothing bad had come from that, had it? And the one in front of him smelled awfully good.

“Fine, I guess I’ll have some,” he said. He lifted his fork and took a bite. Then another. The twins watched with wide grins as Onni took one bite after another, closing his eyes and letting the sweetness melt on his tongue. This was better than the priest lady’s cake. If it was some kind of trick, he’d happily let it kill him. When he finished the last bite, he sighed happily. And then he had an idea.

“You said you could leave when you got rid of all the cake, right?”

The twins nodded. Onni gripped his fork tighter. “Right. Bring me another one.”

Some time later, Onni became aware that the twins were whispering amongst themselves. He almost didn’t notice, he was so focused on doing his duty to help these poor trapped spirits. It was a great sacrifice, of course, but one he was willing to take. And this current sacrifice involved some dark brown substance the twins called “chocolate”. Maybe he was already dead, and this was the afterlife.

But their words caught his ear anyway. “Wow, Jonna. I’ve never seen anyone get this excited over cake. You’d think he’d never eaten it before.”

“I don’t know Joona, remember when Ville first showed up? The human, I mean, not Hannu’s poor dog. He acted like that with cake too.”

Onni took one last bite and set his fork down. There was no more cake left—he’d finished it all. And the edges of the room were getting blurry.

“Jonna, Joona,” he said, standing, “Are you ready to move on?”

Onni woke with the sound of the twin spirits’ laughter in his ears and the taste of sugar on his tongue.


End file.
